Textured Bead Blog

Take your beading to the next level with bead artist Linda Landy posts regularly about the techniques you need to create bead-embroidered works that are sculptural, three-dimensional, and very textured. Keep up with trends and new products in bead embroidery and bead weaving.

With the first night of Hanukkah on Tuesday, it seems appropriate to revisit the peyote dreidel I created in 2007. It took a year of trial and error to come up with the final design (I have a box labeled "Dreidel Graveyard). I was thrilled when Bead&Button selected it as one of their free online projects: Beaded Dreidel.

Tubular peyote stitch is worked around a wooden cube in cobalt, gold and silver using a graph as a guide. The stem is also covered by a peyote tube and topped with a Swarovski Margarita. Each panel features one of the Hebrew letters associated with the traditional Hanukkah game of chance. The four letters that adorn the sides stand for the phrase "Nes gado haya sham," which means "a great miracle happened there."

The response over the years has been overwhelming. I have sold hundreds of kits to as far away as France and England. One friend sat down at the Beading Place at the Bead&Button Show a few years ago and saw a woman working on the project. It turned out to be the beader from France. During a Laura McCabe Master Class a few years ago another friend mentioned the project in conversation when across the room another student shouted, "You're the Dreidel Lady!?!?!?" She had made five of them.

Of all the projects I have worked on and classes I have taught, the timeless Beaded Dreidel has been the most successful. Thank you to all the beaders out there who have made them.

The last two weeks of the year are jam packed with the hustle and bustle of the holidays. This blogger is taking a few weeks off. I wish a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to you and your family. Look for my next post on January 5, 2015.

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